Colombia’s president poses with map of Israel replaced by Palestinian state
Gustavo Petro, who cut ties with Israel after accusing it of genocide, calls for release of Israeli-Colombian hostage as tribute to country’s ‘solidarity with Palestinians’
Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Friday posted footage of himself in Qatar holding a picture of Israel replaced with a Palestinian state, and called for the release of Colombian-Israeli Elkana Bohbot, who is held hostage by Hamas in Gaza, as a “tribute to Colombia and its solidarity with the Palestinian people.”
The video was taken during Petro’s visit to Doha’s Thumama Medical Center, where he met with hospitalized Gazan children, whom he referred to as survivors of genocide, in a post welcoming the recent sign of life from Bohbot.
In the video, a child gives Petro a picture that shows the outlines of Mandatory Palestine from before 1948 — Israel’s borders, with the West Bank and Gaza but without the Golan Heights — framed in a checkered pattern reminiscent of a Palestinian keffiyeh. Inside the borders is a large key — a well-known symbol among Palestinian refugees, many of whom kept the key from their ancestral homes.
Petro, whose government cut ties with Israel in May amid the war in Gaza, can be seen smiling as he clutches the picture, flanked with children, in front of a Qatari flag.
The Colombian president recounted his visit to the hospital in a post on the sign of life that came from Bohbot.
The 35-year-old was snatched from the Re’im-area Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages, sparking the war in Gaza.
“We hope for his prompt release,” wrote Petro. “His freedom is a tribute to Colombia and to its solidarity with the Palestinian people. I hope that his united family can travel to Colombia.”
Bohbot was one of a reported 12 hostages for whom Israel received a sign of life last week following the release of captivity survivors Ohad Ben Ami, Eli Sharabi and Or Levy as part of the month-old Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal, which Qatar helped mediate.
Their release was the fifth in the deal’s ongoing first phase, which comprises women, children, civilian men over 50 and those deemed “humanitarian cases.” Bohbot is slated for release only in the deal’s second phase, which would see Hamas release all remaining living hostages. Israel has not committed to the second phase.
Writing about the sign of life from Bohbot, Petro said he had met in his office with the hostage’s young son Uriel, whom he wished “very happy days.”
Es cuestión simplemente de humanidad. Salvar los niños de Gaza es salvar los niños de la humanidad. pic.twitter.com/B9HBbaxmay
— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) February 14, 2025
“May the children’s pain recede,” added Petro.
He proceeded to describe his tour of the Doha hospital, where he had met with Gazan children and “embraced their broken and mending bodies.”
“I looked into their eyes and saw hope in them,” said Petro. “The hope of the world after a genocide.”
Petro said he and the Colombian ambassador to Qatar, who is “descended from a Palestinian father,” were working to bring Gazan children to Colombia for medical treatment.
“The reconstruction of Gaza will not be a matter of bricks, roads or real estate,” said Petro. “Fundamentally, it is the reconstruction of the social fabric of a people, of an ancestral culture.”
Though Petro did not mention Donald Trump, the comment was apparently a rebuke of the US president’s plan to oust Gaza’s residents and rebuild the Strip as a “riviera of the Middle East.”
“Humanity cannot ostracize a people after a genocide,” said Petro. “Gaza is Palestine, period.”
Colombia followed neighboring Bolivia last May in ending longstanding ties with Israel. Petro had for months assailed Israel’s war against the Hamas terror group, which rules Gaza, likening it to the Holocaust and drawing accusations of antisemitism from Jerusalem. Bogotá also supports South Africa’s case in the International Court Justice accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza — a charge Israel has angrily rejected.
